Ok so you have downloaded an ISO image of Peach OSI (or any other operating system) and afterwards you find out that your older computer has no options to enable your computer to boot by a USB drive and you would prefer to install the OS by USB drive simply because the installation is much faster. Well we've heard that problem for years and this issue seems to be resurfacing again as Peach users are installing Peach on computers that the user once thought was too old to make usable again. Ok, follow this article and we will show you how to boot by USB even if your BIOS has no options to configure your computer to boot by USB.

First things first.

This tutorial is written exclusively for Windows users and you will need the appropriate software (links provided) to make this USB or Floppy Disk boot system work. You will need to be able to boot either an old style floppy disk or you will need to be able to boot by CD or DVD. Most older computers built in the last 30 years can boot by one of these two options. You'll notice that I state one option was a CD drive or a DVD drive. Many older computers do not have a DVD drive and came instead with a CD drive. Good news! All you need is a CD drive! The other thing that you will need is a wired keyboard. This little gem of a fix will not work properly with a wireless keyboard. And last but not least, you will need a program to burn the ISO that I'll provide for you below.

A piece of freeware called PLoP Boot Manager solves this problem, offering an image that can burned to a CD or put on a floppy disk and enables you to boot to a variety of devices including USB drives. (Download to this zip file is available at the bottom of this article.)

In this article we here at Peach are going to try to give you the facts about the direction of Ubuntu and their recent decisions to change Ubuntu and how it will or will not effect Peach OSI. As you may or may not realize, Peach uses the XFCE window manager system which, like Gnome, is based on the GTK+ toolkit. Ubuntu has been developing and using the Unity desktop for several years. With that fact known and with the growth of Ubuntu derivatives that give the desktop user an alternative to the Unity desktop, I wonder if derivatives like Peach OSI have played any role in Ubuntu deciding to abandon the Unity desktop? Whether or not that is the truth or not doesn’t really matter at this point because I do look forward to seeing what they (Ubuntu and Canonical), with their resources, do with Gnome 3. Peach users, by in large, should feel confident that Peach OSI will do our best to incorporate any new improvements to our systems as Ubuntu moves forward with their developments as we continue to develop Peach OSI as we always have – with performance, reliability and an eye toward ease of use which was and is the reason that we started this project in the first place. What we are witnessing with Ubuntu is the same that everyone in the Linux development game is experiencing. In order to survive we all have to make decisions that take into consideration the financial aspects of those decisions. The reason that Ubuntu phones and tablets has failed is not that there was not the experience or technology to make it possible but that the public at large would rather not have a free and open source portable platform that has Linux as its OS and as the public often does – it opted out of such research and programs by supporting the status quo.

Need an example?: For the past 5 months we have been working on a flavor of Peach OSI code named Cyborg. Our idea was/is to develop a Peach OS that incorporates our basic OS with Android capabilities, such as Google Play and access to the millions of Apps that are available thereof. We’ve traveled down many pathways to get there, natively installed, virtual machines and emulators – each with its own set of advantages and issues but in the end we are having to scrap the program because of two basic issues. Number one is lack of support for the program and number two is the fact that Google will not give us permission to include any Google made Apps like Google Play, Google Earth, basically anything with the title “Google” even though they openly publish these Apps as “Open Source”. How they get around this is by tagging the open source definition with they reserve the right to allow or disallow “permission” of their applications to only “approved” devices. Taking into their considerations for building Chrome capabilities that more and more allow for Chrome users to install Apps directly with Chrome – this “approval” of specific devices seems to be less important than keeping you – their end user – tied to them for marketing and other profit making purposes.

So in the end it’s really up to you and where you decide to place your trust – and make no mistake – when you give your hard earned dollars either by buying products or making donations you are making a conscious choice of what the future will be. Ubuntu is doing nothing more than swimming down stream with the current because to swim upstream against it would eventually depleat whatever resources are left. If there ever was a time that the community of “Open Source” developers needed your support that time is now. Otherwise I’m afraid that in the near future any innovation or “free” to the public resources will be long gone. Read on to read more about the changes with Ubuntu.

32 Bit or 64 Bit?

Peach Pi TV

How about a Peach Distro that allows you to have a fully functioning HD Home Theater PC for the Raspberry Pi? Well we have it. And you know what? We use it ourselves daily. Fast, functional and full of HTPC features!!

Peach Pi 16.04

Now this is what I'm talking about! We've built a lightning fast full desktop system for the Raspberry Pi. Oh you can get many operating systems for the Raspberry Pi but you have never seen anything like this.